A Fishin' Lakitu[1] (alternatively Fishing Lakitu[2]) is a variant of Lakitu found throughout the Mario franchise. This Lakitu uses a fishing rod to hold up various objects, usually items or stoplights.

Super Mario World marks the first appearance of Fishin' Lakitu. Only one appears in this game, in Forest of Illusion 4. In this game, the Fishin' Lakitu dangles a 1-Up Mushroom from a fishing pole; should Mario grab the mushroom, it becomes a normal Lakitu and throws Spinies at Mario. Mario can defeat it the same way he can a normal Lakitu. It will respawn as a normal Lakitu from there on in.

No Fishin' Lakitus appear in Super Mario 64 outright; however, the Lakitu Bros., who have fishing poles with cameras on them, appear in the game as cameramen and exist mostly to explain how the camera works.

In Super Mario Advance 4: Super Mario Bros. 3, whenever the player wants to scan an e-Reader card, a Fishin' Lakitu will appear to whisk Mario away from wherever on the map he's on. This Lakitu has a slightly different appearance from the enemy Lakitus found in levels.

He goes unused in PAL versions due to all e-Reader content being dummied out. He also goes unused in Virtual Console releases due to all e-Reader content being unlocked by default.

Fishin' Lakitus (referred to simply as "Lakitus") return in Super Mario Odyssey as NPCs instead of enemies. They appear in Sand Kingdom, Lake Kingdom, Snow Kingdom, and Bowser's Kingdom, and generally do not appear until all the main story Power Moons have been collected for a kingdom (most notably, the Sand Kingdom's Lakitu is frozen). Mario can use Cappy to capture the Lakitu and fish for the biggest Cheep Cheep in the water in order to get a Power Moon. In the Sand Kingdom, Mario must also fish Captain Toad out of sand, while in Bowser's Kingdom, he must fish for Poochy in purple sludge. If an enemy gets too close to the Lakitu, he will complain that he can't fish under these conditions, regardless whether Mario has captured the enemy in question or not.

A Fishin' Lakitu appeared in Mario Kart-themed issues of Super Mario-Kun, generally serving the same role it does in those games. This one seems to be wilder than usual; most notably, it bonks Mario with the starting light at one point.

A single, unnamed Lakitu appears throughout the Mario Kart series, billed in Super Mario Kart's instruction manual as the owner of all the tracks. He uses his fishing pole to hold the starting lights (except in Mario Kart DS) and fish out racers who fall off the track. The action of falling off a track and being fished out incurs a considerable loss of time and often position, and in Super Mario Kart, Mario Kart: Super Circuit, Mario Kart 7, and Mario Kart 8, he also charges up to three coins for fishing out a racer; however, if a racer does not have enough coins, he fishes out the racer anyway.

Starting with Mario Kart: Double Dash!!, he uses his pole to show the lap count as well as a U-turn sign when a driver is going the wrong way. In Mario Kart 8, after about five seconds, he will also flip a driver so that they go in the right direction again.

Mario Kart: Double Dash!! has an intro gag regarding the Fishin' Lakitu: he normally appears holding the starting light, but may sometimes appear with a Cheep Cheep, which may be so big it falls off the hook.

In most Mario Tennis games, a Lakitu sits on one side of the net and uses his fishing pole to fish balls. In the Nintendo 64 Mario Tennis, he's only seen doing this when a player faults. In Mario's Tennis, he shows the current score using his fishing pole, while in Mario Power Tennis, he uses the pole to show starting lights (recycled from Mario Kart: Double Dash!!), the score, and time left in various minigames.

Fishin' Lakitus appear in the firstthreegames in the series, acting as level-up assistants. Whenever the player levels up, a Fishin' Lakitu appears with a selecting device that allows the player choose which stat they wish to add bonus points to (on top of the normal points gained while leveling up). Once selected, the device then flips over and becomes a roulette that determines how many points that stat will earn, from one to three. Fishin' Lakitus also appear in the final battle with Fawful in Mario & Luigi: Superstar Saga, holding up spotlights.

Fishin' Lakitu appears in basketball and hockey in Mario Sports Mix. In the former, it holds the ball on its fishing pole for the tip-off (just like in Mario Hoops), where at the start of a face-off in the latter, it holds the puck.

Super Smash Bros. Melee's Yoshi's Island stage returns yet again in Super Smash Bros. for Wii U. The Peach's Castle stage from Super Smash Bros. also returns to both games later on as downloadable content.